When it comes to feeding kittens, they need a lot more nutrients than just regular adult cat food can provide for them. While yes, adult food has more nutrients, it doesn’t have enough of the crucial vitamins and minerals needed for a kitten to thrive compared to an adult cat.
Another downside is that most cat foods are harder to eat for a kitten, so you often have to soften it for them to be able to eat hard food for their little teeth. That’s where soft cat food might be able to come into play. Therefore, there are numerous benefits to feeding your kitty some special wet food, and in this guide, we’re going to discuss what they are.
Advanced hydration
One of the best benefits that wet kitten food can give your cat is that since it has extra electrolytes and water in it, it helps to rehydrate your cat. Domesticated cats still have their instinctual kidney functions when necessary, but putting that sort of bodily stress on them can be extremely harmful – they can’t handle it the same as if they were completely wild.
Hard cat food is made up of a lot of minerals, and since they are dry, they put your cat at greater risk for developing bladder issues, kidney problems, and even urinary obstructions like kidney stones.
On the other hand, wet cat food is diluted with water, so it doesn’t have the hard and dry minerals and vitamins that make it harder for cats to digest it. For kittens, this is extremely useful because it serves the same purposes as a mother’s milk in terms of providing all essential nutrients plus the hydration to make it easier.
Kittens have trouble using the restroom when they are very small, and they often require the mother to help them pass their waste. However, as they start to get older, some mother cats can’t handle the teeth that kittens have grown, so they feed them less liquid food.
Eventually, the mother cat will also stop helping their offspring with this process, and it can be very hard on a small kitten to adapt to a sudden change to solid food. That’s another area that wet cat food can help due to the hydration that it gives them. It also helps to flush a cat’s system of bacteria, give them a high protein but low carb solution.
It’s more carnivorous food
Cats are primarily carnivores even more than canines, and thus they can’t thrive on any vegetarian diet. Wet cat food is loaded with crude proteins, animal fats, and collagens that a cat needs to maintain a healthy body and a healthy coat.
Not only that, but hard food is much harder on their teeth – another reason why they eat meat. Sure, you may see a cat playing and eating a flower or grass once in a while, but it isn’t very often. They may even eat a small rodent or animal, or bugs, bones, and all. But this is merely because they get all nutrients at once; however, the primary base of a cat’s diet is protein.
Less choking hazards
Cats have a harder time swallowing food since they don’t have the saliva that dogs can produce easier. Therefore, they really don’t chew up hard food as much as they should. This can pose not only a dietary tract threat but also a choking hazard.
Hard kibbles in cat food also are harder to digest, so a cat has more issues with solid stools and constipation. You may think that this is great for your litter box clutter, but this is actually very bad for your cat.
If your cat doesn’t eat its food by chewing it enough, it can also increase regurgitation. That’s why you often see animals eat fast then vomit up their food (of course, they’ll eat it later – Gross, but true). If you incorporate wet cat food, it can help your cat avoid upset tummies more often.
Hairball control
This is something that a lot of people don’t consider. Cats spend well above half of their lives cleaning themselves. This means that they’re continually pulling hairs and swallowing some, which may give them hairballs.
If a cat doesn’t have the right bits of soft food to digest, it also makes the stray hairs harder to pass and digest, resulting in more hairballs that can choke and hurt your cat.
Using wet cat food can in turn give them the nutrients, something in their stomach, and even promote the passing of hair to make it easier on their entire digestive tract – virtually eliminating hairballs or the need to just get special medicine.
Dental wear down
Dental wear down is something that all animals suffer from. Even harder dog foods regularly can cause dental issues. The same applies to cats, though. When a cat is periodically eating dry cat food, it can cause more breakage of teeth as well as the fact that when a cat upchucks their food, frequently, it’s harder on their teeth too.
Dry cat food may not give your cat the saliva they need to help keep their teeth clean, and therefore, they end up having additional plaque buildup, which can deteriorate their teeth.
On the other hand, wet food gives your cat the best in terms of all of the above benefits as well as the best benefit by increasing their saliva so they can not only keep their food down, but they can help fight dental diseases that are frequently common in cats.
Conclusion
When it comes to choosing the right soft cat food, you can get one that is about 60% protein, then up to 40 % of crude animal fats, and about a 10% carbohydrate amounts. This ratio is beneficial because it’s literally how every cat needs in terms of these three things. Of course, they’ll have other vitamins and minerals that will benefit your cat, but you can make a humongous difference for your kitten if you feed them canned cat food.